How can the LHC help find dark energy?
Dark energy has a greater virtue than merely baffling theoretical astrophysicists. Dark energy adds to the total amount of energy in the universe, which compensates for the curvature caused by matter. (Einstein told us that matter causes space to curve, but if energy and matter are balanced, there’s no curvature—and the universe is flat.) But like some kinds of energy, dark energy may possibly have a particle associated with it—a “dark energy particle.” Because the LHC is designed to look for particles, it could conceivably find a dark energy particle (if it exists). There’s another unsolved mystery about the motion of the galaxies and stars within galaxies. When astronomers calculate how galaxies and stars should move according to the laws of gravity, they find that the equations give them a wrong answer. Observations show that stars and galaxies behave as though there is much more matter in the galaxy than can be deduced by counting stars (estimating by experience the mass of each st
